(Reuters) – Here’s what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:
Indian states run out of COVID-19 vaccines
Several Indian states have run out of COVID-19 vaccines a day before a planned widening of a nationwide inoculation drive, authorities said on Friday, as new infections surged to another daily record.
India reported 386,452 news cases in the last 24 hours, while deaths from COVID-19 jumped by 3,498, health ministry data showed.
However, medical experts believe actual COVID-19 numbers may be five to 10 times greater than the official tally.
Brazil passes 400,000 COVID-19 fatalities
Brazil became the second country to pass 400,000 COVID-19 deaths after the United States, and experts said the daily toll could remain high for several months because of slow vaccinations and loosening social restrictions.
Brazil on Thursday registered 3,001 COVID-19 deaths, taking its total since the pandemic began to 401,186 fatalities, the Health Ministry said.
A surge of infections this year has pushed hospitals around the country to the brink of their capacities and led to 100,000 deaths in just over a month.
Pfizer begins to export U.S.-made shots
Pfizer’s shipment of COVID-19 vaccine to Mexico this week includes doses made in its U.S. plant, the first of what are expected to be ongoing exports from the United States, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.
The vaccine shipment, produced at Pfizer’s Kalamazoo, Michigan plant, marks the first time the drugmaker has delivered abroad from U.S facilities after a Trump-era restriction on dose exports expired at the end of March, the source said.
The U.S. government has been under mounting pressure in recent weeks to provide surplus vaccines to other nations desperately in need as it makes swift progress vaccinating its own residents.
Singapore finds COVID-19 cluster in hospital
Singapore has detected a COVID-19 cluster in one its largest hospitals, among 16 new locally transmitted infections that were reported on Thursday, its highest number of domestic cases in seven months.
Singapore has contained its coronavirus outbreaks since a big contagion among migrant workers in dormitories last year. Most of its subsequent cases have been imported and found in quarantine.
Eight of the cases announced late Thursday were linked to Tan Tock Seng Hospital, the health ministry said. The hospital’s cases include a doctor and a nurse who were vaccinated for the coronavirus. Both had symptoms.
Cambodians complain of lockdown hunger
Residents in Cambodia’s capital gathered on Friday to demand food from the government, outraged at what they called inadequate aid distribution during a tough lockdown that bars people from leaving their homes.
Authorities put Phnom Penh and a nearby town under a hard lockdown on April 19 to quell a surge in coronavirus infections that has seen Cambodia’s case total balloon from about 500 to 12,641 since late February, including all 91 of its deaths.
“People in my village haven’t received a food donation yet. It has been 10 days,” factory worker Oum Sreykhouch, 25, told Reuters by telephone.
(Compiled by Linda Noakes; editing by Barbara Lewis)
